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"Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you'll hear them speaking to you."

Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life forms that lived symbiotically inside the cells of all living things. When present in sufficient numbers, they could allow their host to detect the pervasive energy field known as the Force. Midi-chlorian counts were linked to potential in the Force, ranging from normal Human levels of 2,500 per cell to the much higher levels of Jedi. The highest known midi-chlorian count—over 20,000 per cell—belonged to the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, who was believed to have been conceived by the midi-chlorians.[N 1]

Midi-chlorian counts were measured through a blood test; the Jedi used this method to locate Force-sensitive children before their Order was purged by the Galactic Empire. With the rise of the Empire, research into Jedi and the Force was banned, and though midi-chlorians continued to be tested for, sometimes by the Empire itself to root out hidden Jedi and other Force-sensitives, knowledge of them was diminished and inquiries into them were branded as illegal medical research. Midi-chlorians were only rediscovered after the New Jedi Order was founded.

When not forbidden, studies of midi-chlorians occurred among those who could master the Force and those who could not. While medical teams worked to understand the relationship between midi-chlorians and the Force, Jedi healers performed their own studies of the organisms. Even more esoteric studies were conducted by the Dark Lord of the SithDarth Plagueis, who discovered a way to manipulate the midi-chlorians to create new life.

Contents

Biology

Midi-chlorians were intelligent[1] microscopic life-forms that served as organelles within all living cells, existing in a symbiotic relationship with the beings they inhabited[2][6] and comprising a collective consciousness among themselves.[1] Present in all life,[2] midi-chlorians were isomorphic on every planet that supported life.[6] Midi-chlorians, in fact, were necessary for life to exist. They also allowed for a connection with the pervasive energy field known as the Force;[7] in sufficient numbers, midi-chlorians could allow their symbiont organism to detect the Force, and this connection could be strengthened by quieting one's mind,[2] allowing the midi-chlorians to "speak" to their symbiont and communicate the will of the Force.[7] Counts as low as 2,000 midi-chlorians per cell provided no sensitivity to the Force;[8] an average Human had less than 2,500 per cell, while a mildly Force-sensitive being such as Nova Stihl had a count in excess of 5,000.[9] According to Sith LordDarth Tenebrous, a being born of "pure force" might have a count of 15,000 or more, implying that most Force-sensitives did not have a count that high.[10]Jedi had especially high midi-chlorian counts, and of them Anakin Skywalker was said to have the highest ever recorded[2] at over 20,000, even higher than the powerful Jedi MasterYoda.[7] Though Skywalker later lost a good deal of his organic body, his cells continued to teem with midi-chlorians.[11]

Anakin Skywalker, possibly conceived by the midi-chlorians

The magnitude of the midi-chlorian count served as a measure of one's potential in the Force,[12] though there were other inheritable characteristics that could influence Force ability as well.[13] Indeed, though Force ability often meant a high midi-chlorian count, it was not always the case.[14] While some medical theories postulated that the midi-chlorians created the connection between more macroscopic organisms and the Force, some Jedi believed that, contrarily, the midi-chlorians were created by the Force to serve as the link between it and other life.[6] Midi-chlorian counts did not indicate an upper limit to Force ability; the possibility existed for a Jedi to achieve a connection to the Force on an equivalent level to a Jedi with a higher count.[1]

Midi-chlorians could be influenced by the Force to create new life, a technique developed by Dark Lord of the SithDarth Plagueis.[15] There was even a possibility that they could induce conception in a Human; Anakin Skywalker was believed to have been conceived by the midi-chlorians, with no biological father.[2] This was considered impossible by many Jedi, however, and the idea received only shock when it was first proposed to the Jedi High Council.[1]

Though tested for, midi-chlorians did not usually figure into the medical treatment of most beings, and they were linked to no known pathology.[9] Chemicals used in medicine, such as anesthetics, could thin the midi-chlorians; if it was vital they be preserved, a being could be operated on without anesthesia.[16] The drug bota, on the other hand, was thought capable of boosting the effects of the midi-chlorians, enhancing an individual's Force-sensitivity.[8] An organism that had been grievously injured and unable to be kept alive through medical treatment could be infused with blood rich in midi-chlorians, forcing an organism to stay alive when it would normally die, as was the case with GeneralGrievous. However, this would not transfer any of the blood donor's Force-sensitivity.[17]

The Sith virus known as the Sickness could alter the midi-chlorians within an infected individual. The Sith Lord Darth Drear devised it as a means of immortality, the final step of which involved eating the living heart of a Jedi, and thus obtaining an infusion of midi-chlorians from the Jedi's blood. He was never able to capture a Jedi with sufficiently high midi-chlorian count before dying, however.[18]

When Darth Tenebrous was killed by his apprentice Plagueis on Bal'demnic, amidst the billions upon billions of individual midi-chlorians in his cells, a tiny fraction of his midi-chlorians were not dying. They would not die as long as they inhabited a living host. These especially tenacious midi-chlorians were privately named maxi-chlorians by Tenebrous himself, and had been altered to be long-lived midi-chlorians, and would migrate, not in the Force, but into Plagueis, as a retrovirus designed to infect the host's blood, in order to gain conscience beyond death.[10] At the same time, Darth Plagueis sensed Tenebrous' midi-chlorians wink out, like lights slowly deprived of a power source, and yet, he could perceive his master in the Force.[19]

Plagueis' work with midi-chlorians was directly rooted in what was traditionally considered the Living Force, or those energies attached to the anima and the pneuma. At the same time, Plagueis mused that although the Unifying Force was not specifically necessary for the creation and manipulation of life, midi-chlorians channeled it nonetheless. Through his studies, Plagueis found that the aperion governs the cohesion of matter, from the atoms of a pebble to all planets and gravity in the universe, including the dimension of time, which could be possibly manipulated on a grand scale, allowing an individual to step instantly from one place to another by folding space, regardless of the intervening distance. The anima governs life, and it is through this state that all Force healing is possible. The pneuma governs consciousness, and through this, Plagueis was convinced that the energy pattern known as self-awareness could be preserved and imprinted a second time into the neural pathways of a different brain.[20]

Force-sensitive members of the rock-based B'rknaaspecies had microscopic midi-chlorian-infused structures that were very different from the midi-chlorian-infused cells of organic beings.[21]

Though rumored, the Yinchorr were resistant to Force suggestion. The species has a survival mechanism, in which the midi-chlorians protected the consciousness of their vessels by refusing to be manipulated.[19]

Study and analysis

Midi-chlorians could be detected through a blood test by measuring their concentration in a being's red blood cells,[11] though such tests were not perfect and were prone to fault.[2] Midi-chlorian tests were part of a standard medical check-up, recorded in a blood analysis.[9] From at least 1000 BBY to 19 BBY, blood tests for midi-chlorians were the primary way by which the Jedi Order found Force-sensitive children.[12] Such tests were mandatory for beings born in regions controlled by the Galactic Republic.[21] Some Jedi comlinks could have midi-chlorian samplers attached to them to measure blood samples,[22] though these results would need to be interpolated through a computer, such as that found aboard a starship, to get a count.[7] Darth Vader had an entire blood-testing system in his meditation chamber, which he not only used to test for infections, but also measure his midi-chlorian count.[11]

While most research on midi-chlorians was conducted by Jedi healers,[9] the connection between midi-chlorians and the Force was studied in non-Jedi medical circles as well, with theories advanced as to the relation between them.[6] On Vjun, high midi-chlorian counts were a mark of status, possessed by the more prestigious families. As a result, interest in the midi-chlorians remained high on that world.[23]

Experimentation on midi-chlorians happened occasionally as well. Nobles on Vjun conducted forbidden[24] experiments on the life-forms in an attempt to increase Force sensitivity, the results of which drove the population of Vjun insane.[23] Darth Plagueis, Dark Lord of the Sith, sought a way of influencing the midi-chlorians with the Force to create new life from nothing, and he may have succeeded before his death at the hands of his apprentice.[25] Plagueis also possessed a lab located in the planet Aborah, in which he experimented with different species, altering their midi-chlorians in order to prolong their lives. Some time later, after killing Darth Tenebrous, Darth Venamis sought to get revenge on Plagueis. However, Venamis was defeated and kept by Plagueis in his lab in a near-coma stasis. Through the years, Plagueis experimented with Venamis, killing and reviving him, manipulating the midi-chlorians within the Bith's body.[19] Therefore, Plagueis concluded that in order to stop aging, the solution was not to add more midi-chlorians to a body, but to impose one's will on the midi-chlorians already present on the subject; because midi-chlorians were linked by a universal mind, the ones in Plagueis' cells initially resisted his imposition upon their fellows, but eventually he succeeded, first with small creatures, then with slaves. Through these experiments, Plagueis discovered that these midi-chlorians would not die; instead, they drew upon sustaining Force energy, which acted on a microscopic level to halt tissue decay in their host, putting an end to aging and disease. In his writings, Plagueis believed this could only be achieved with a sharpened mental focus and an affinity for the Force to impose a measurable effect on living cells.[20]Darth Drear, another Sith Lord, incorporated the midi-chlorians into his own research into immortality.[18]

The Force detector was one of the tools developed to measure midi-chlorian counts. Based on plans of the scientistJenna Zan Arbor, the Force Detector consisted of a pair of paddles connected to a control pack; the paddles were placed around the subject, at which point the control pack would read out a list of statistics, including midi-chlorian count. It also generated a blue nimbus around a wireframe hologram of the subject; though this correlated to Force-sensitivity, it was not a direct measurement of the subject's midi-chlorian concentration.[26] The DRK-1 Dark Eye probe droid, a tool of the Sith, was also capable of scanning lifeforms for the presence of midi-chlorians.[27]

Measuring midi-chlorian counts was not always accurate, particularly among older children or individuals with unusual psychologies. The Jedi therefore sometimes used alternative methods to determine Force-sensitivity, such as testing with a mental maze or testing screen.[21]

History

Early years

The planet where midi-chlorians evolved as it looked by the time of the Clone Wars.

Midi-chlorians evolved on a luminous planet located somewhere "in the heart of the galaxy", according to the Five Priestesses.[3][4]

Before the creation of the Jedi Order around 25,783 BBY, a number of Force sects including the Followers of Palawa, Chatos Academy, and Order of Dai Bendu studied the Force scientifically, including the science of midi-chlorians, on worlds from Had Abbadon to Ondos.[28] The Sith knew of midi-chlorians by c. 4645 BBY, when Darth Drear utilized them in his experiments on immortality.[18] Circa 3956 BBY, the Rakata, a species that had almost lost all trace of Force-sensitivity, conducted their own scientific inquiries to find a genetic basis for the Force, which they hoped would allow them to become Force-sensitive once again.[29] How the Jedi detected Force-sensitives in their early millennia was lost to time, but shortly after the Battle of Ruusan in 1000 BBY, midi-chlorians were either discovered by them for the first time, or rediscovered after having lost knowledge of them in an earlier era[12]—at least one Jedi, Hestizo Trace, had known of the existence of midi-chlorians as early as 3645 BBY.[18] Blood tests for midi-chlorians were instituted to find recruits with a connection to the Force, a method used by the Jedi for almost a thousand years until the purge of the Jedi in 19 BBY.[12] In an event that would have repercussions a very long time in the future, a prophecy was made in these early days of a Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force and was said to have a high concentration of midi-chlorians.[1]

On the world of Vjun, a high midi-chlorian count was synonymous with status, leading to a surge of interest in midi-chlorian phenomena. When Vjun came into contact with the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order, the most eminent families—those with the highest counts—sought to protect themselves from Jedi recruitment by augmenting their own abilities. The seventeenth ViscountMalreaux of the esteemed House Malreaux, along with a consortium of others, worked to genetically manipulate the midi-chlorians and thereby enhance the counts of Vjun's population. They were successful, but at a cost: when the entire planet became Force-sensitive with no mental training to handle it, the populace went mad and murdered each other.[23]

Darth Plagueis, manipulator of the midi-chlorians

In the decades before the Battle of Naboo, Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Plagueis commenced his own experiments with the midi-chlorians. While the Jedi thought of the cellular organelles as symbionts, Plagueis believed they were interlopers, running interference for the Force, and standing in the way of a beings' ability to contact the Force directly. Through years of experimentation, Plagueis had honed an ability to perceive the actions of midi-chlorians. Furthermore, Plagueis believed that only the Sith understood that sentient life was on the verge of a transformative leap; that through the manipulation of midi-chlorians, or the overthrow of the Forceful group that supervised them, the divide between organic life and the Force could be bridged, and death could be erased from the continuum. In order to further the Grand Plan, Darth Plagueis, and his apprentice, Darth Sidious, committed an act in direct violation to the nature of the Force, and attempted to tip its balance toward the dark side. The experiment yielded unfruitful however, and the midi-chlorians, unwilling to comply, struck back in retaliation conceiving a savior to ultimately destroy the Sith: the prophesied Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker.[19]

A computer readout of Anakin Skywalker's midi-chlorian count

In 32 BBY, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn was stranded on the planet Tatooine, where he encountered the slave boy Anakin Skywalker. Jinn sensed the Force strongly in Skywalker, and when he learned from the boy's mother Shmi Skywalker that Anakin had had no father, Jinn realized that there was something special about him. That night, Jinn took a blood sample from a scrape on Skywalker's arm and tested it, telling the boy that he was checking for infections. Jinn had his PadawanObi-Wan Kenobi run a midi-chlorian test on the sample; Kenobi was surprised to find Skywalker's count was off the chart—over 20,000, exceeding that of even the powerful Master Yoda, or any other Jedi. Jinn later brought Skywalker to the galacticcapital of Coruscant and took him before the Jedi Council. There he informed them of Skywalker's unusually high midi-chlorian count and stated his belief that the boy had been conceived by the midi-chlorians. Jinn was referring to the prophecy of the Chosen One; while the Council recognized the reference, they did not agree with Jinn's conclusion,[7] although some Jedi nonetheless believed Skywalker had the potential to become the most powerful Jedi ever.[16] The lore of the Sith Lords claimed that Skywalker's conception had been a result of Plagueis' manipulations of the midi-chlorians.[25]

By these latter years of the Republic, midi-chlorians were a matter of public knowledge, though some found the idea of them to be unclear. In 22 BBY, the Spotts TradeChip Company released a set of tradechips of famous Jedi Knights, featuring data, including midi-chlorian counts, garnered from what the company called the "best information available." However, the chips attracted criticism from the Jedi Order for their inaccuracies, as did the midi-chlorian counts provided; Yoda's, for example, provided the wildly inaccurate number of four million. Spotts defended its product, claiming that all mistakes were minor.[30]

Later that year, CountDooku, leader of the Separatist movement, revealed to the Jedi that Plagueis' apprentice Darth Sidious secretly controlled the Galactic Senate. Seventeen months later, the Jedi Ronhar Kim conceived of the idea to test the midi-chlorian counts of the senators, believing that the Force-sensitive Sith would be revealed in this way. Kim approached Supreme Chancellor Palpatine with his plan, but Palpatine, who secretly was Sidious, discouraged him, advising him that it would be politically impossible. Upon learning that Kim had not spoken of his idea to the Jedi Council, Palpatine arranged for the Jedi to be killed in a trap, and Kim's plan was never implemented.[31]

Under the Empire

Force Detectors, a tool used to measure midi-chlorian counts

In the closing years of the Republic, studies of midi-chlorians were conducted by Jedi healers and medical personnel alike.[6][9] During the Clone Wars, Kaminoan defector Ko Sai was one of the scientists who sought to uncover the mysteries of the midi-chlorians and Jedi genome.[32] The Jedi Order in its later years established a taboo over empirical studies into the Force and its tangible aspects, believing it could not be scientifically studied. When the Order was disbanded and Galactic Empire declared, though, the taboo was broken. The scientists of Emperor Palpatine treated the Force as a purely physical phenomenon, breaking it apart into the tangible components of midi-chlorians and energy. The Force Detector was one of the results of these studies, and it was used by the Inquisitorius in the Great Jedi Purge.[26] During the reign of the Empire, midi-chlorian tests were performed routinely on Inner and Mid Rim worlds to root out Force-sensitives and Jedi in hiding. Such individuals were rarely heard from again. In response, an underground trade of drugs and blood treatments sprang up that could supposedly fool a test or lower one's count; however, they were largely ineffective.[2]

After the rise of the Empire, Palpatine ordered a complete ban on all information related to Jedi or the Force and had such data purged from data banks galaxy-wide. Statute OB-CPO-1198, covering illegal medical research that included studies of midi-chlorians, was also enacted. With the Jedi's records on midi-chlorians no longer available for study and any information on their relation to the Force kept out of medical libraries, medical professionals knew little of the nature of midi-chlorians, even as they continued to test for them. When Kornell Divini, a doctor on the Death Star, measured an abnormally high midi-chlorian count from one of his patients, he put out a request on the MedNet for any further information on midi-chlorians. Divini's search triggered warning flags put in place by the Empire, attracting the attention of the Emperor's servant Darth Vader, and Divini was arrested under the provisions of OB-CPO-1198.[9]

When Luke Skywalker established his New Jedi Order in 11 ABY, he had no knowledge of midi-chlorian tests and as a result was forced to devise his own tests for finding Force-sensitives. The midi-chlorian method was rediscovered by the Order at some point before 40 ABY.[12]

Behind the scenes

Origins

"It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different; they have more midi-chlorians in their cells."

―George Lucas, establishing guidelines for the Expanded Universe in 1977[src]

Midi-chlorians were first conceived by George Lucas as early as 1977. In this time the first Expanded Universe products were being created, including the ongoing Marvel Star Wars series and Alan Dean Foster's novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Lucas sat down with a member of his staff, Carol Titelman, to dictate a number of guidelines for these works, explaining various concepts of his universe. Among them were an explanation of midi-chlorians, which Force-sensitive beings were said to have more of in their cells.[34] However, Lucas did not feel he had the time to introduce the concept of midi-chlorians. The idea would not appear in any Star Wars product for twenty-two years; Lucas chose 1999's Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace as the opportunity to first mention the midi-chlorians, explaining why some were sensitive to the Force while others were not, an issue that he had left unresolved since the original film Star Wars. Lucas incorporated the explanation of midi-chlorians into the film as part of Anakin Skywalker's journey towards understanding the Force.[35] That Lucas had planned the midi-chlorians as far back as 1977 was hinted at on the DVD commentary of The Phantom Menace, but the details would not be fully revealed for another eight years, coming to light in the 2007 book The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film, the hardcover edition of which had, among its appendices, Lucas' notes for the Expanded Universe authors. Despite this, however, Lucas implied that the precepts of being a Jedi could be practiced by "anyone" when discussing the story treatment for Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi in 1981 (then-titled Revenge of the Sith), and in particular the backstory for Anakin (who had been revealed to be Darth Vader), comparing it to yoga or karate.[36]

A mitochondrion, inspiration for the midi-chlorians

Midi-chlorians in The Phantom Menace are part of a recurring theme throughout the movie, that of symbiotic relationships.[35] They were loosely based on mitochondria, organelles that provide energy for cells; like midi-chlorians, mitochondria are believed to have once been separate organisms that inhabited living cells and have since become part of them; even now, mitochondria act in some ways as independent lifeforms, with DNA all their own. Lucas established this relation with mitochondria, in particular the necessity of midi-chlorians for life to exist, as a metaphor for society; namely, he says all parts of society must get along in much the same way the midi-chlorians and their symbiont do.[37] In 2006—as a tribute to this similarity—a newly discovered species of bacteria residing within mitochondria was named Midichloria mitochondrii after the midi-chlorians. Its discoverer, Nate Lo, wrote to Lucas requesting permission to use the name, and was granted it.[38]

Though midi-chlorians would not make a public appearance until 1999, pre–Phantom Menace Expanded Universe materials hinted at an individual's biological connection to the Force. In Jedi Search, Lando Calrissian carries out a search for potential Jedi for Luke Skywalker's new academy by using a device that can detect affinity to the Force. In the Thrawn Trilogy, two organisms are mentioned, the vornskrs and the ysalamiri, that have evolved the ability respectively to use the Force to hunt prey and block the Force.

Controversy

Midi-chlorians have had some negative reception among fans; some see them as adding hard science to the alleged "mysteriousness" or spirituality of the Force and dislike what they see as a new concept. Others, however, believe that having a physical aspect to a mystical Force calls upon real-world religious traditions, feeling that the mythic qualities of the Force have been strengthened by midi-chlorians.

A misconception exists that rather than being indicators, midi-chlorians actually are the Force or create it; there is no canonical basis for this belief.[40][41][42]Steve Perry, who used midi-chlorians in his novel Death Star, opined that they were "less than inspired."[43] George Lucas, on the other hand, considers the two aspects of the Force separately, treating the midi-chlorians as the practical, biological side, distinct from the spiritual and metaphysical side of the Force.[35]

Notes

↑Acording to the chart in Star Wars Graphics, some humans, such as Han Solo and Owen Lars, had lower levels of 1,500 per cell, while Anakin's count is stated to be 27,700. According to the chart key, the minimum count needed for a person to become a Jedi was 7,000, with an average count for a Jedi of 10,000.[5]

↑The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, p. 62-69
REVENGE OF THE JEDI STORY CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT, JULY 13 to JULY 17, 1981—SUMMARY
Participants: George Lucas, Richard Marquand, Lawrence Kasdan, and Howard Kazanjian
Location: Park Way HouseNote: Many of the ideas here are conceptual only and should not be considered as canon in the Star Wars saga.
[...]
THE STORY OF ANAKINLawrence Kasadan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?George Lucas: Yes, everyone can do it.Kasadan: Not just the Jedi?Lucas: It's just the Jedi who take the time to do it.Marquand: They use it as a technique.Lucas: Like yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing. Also like karate.